January 11, 2011

While it's annoying that audiences have to wait about a half-decade for every great female-centric teen comedy, this year's Easy A easily joins 1995's Clueless, 2000's Bring It On, and 2004's Mean Girls on the Mount Rushmore of this underfed genre, with Emma Stone's Olive arguably the funniest, most intelligent lead to appear in one of these things yet. The droll, wise-beyond-her-years "best friend" not only takes center stage in Easy A, but receives an air-tight vehicle worthy of her wit.

December 07, 2009

"Why am I your fall guy, constantfuckingly?" a plaintive Reiner asks, amid the angry fallout of a recording session. "Because I love you," Lips replies, quite without embarrassment or doubt. I have noticed something similar in the bond between Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt, of the British group Status Quo, and we should celebrate the way in which pairs of aging rockers tend to wind up like lovely, crumbling old married couples, with each one finishing the other’s sentences and pining when he has to go away.